Forced out of work, home and country

Lawyer flees to Britain after receiving threats and getting fired for allegedly appearing in a pornographic video.

LAHORE: A lawyer has fled to Britain after she received death threats, was disowned by her family and fired from her job for allegedly appearing in a pornographic video clip, The Express Tribute has learnt.

Asmaa alias Abida, a 34-year-old advocate and member of the Lahore Bar Association, was named in an FIR registered at Narang Mandi police station, Sheikhupura district, on the complaint of the headmaster of a local school.

The complainant, Chaudhry Muhammad Khan, stated: “I was in Rail Bazaar of Narang Mandi and saw some people whispering after seeing something on a mobile phone. One of them showed me the video on the mobile phone in which Asmaa was fully nude and committing objectionable acts. She not only made a film of those acts but also widely circulated it via mobile phone, thus hurting the young generation and the morals of society.”

The police, in FIR#213/10 registered on May 13, 2010, booked Asmaa and an unnamed co-accused under sections 292 and 294 of the Pakistan Penal Code. These sections declare the sale, distribution, public exhibition, production, possession or singing of obscene material as punishable offences.

She filed a pre-arrest bail petition on May 14, but no lawyer was initially willing to take her case, said advocate Chaudhry Ghulam Mustafa, who now represents her.

Mustafa, who is secretary general of the Ferozewala Bar Association, said he was criticised by his colleagues for defending Asmaa.

He told the court that Asmaa had been falsely implicated by the police and the complainant. He said that as a law school graduate and member of a respectable family, “she cannot even think of commiting such an offence”.

After hearing the arguments, the judge granted her pre-arrest bail for Rs75,000.

Mustafa told The Express Tribune that the complainant and others deliberately circulated the clip in his client’s neighbourhood and in places related to her work: the Lahore Bar Association, the Lahore High Court Bar Association and the Ferozewala Bar Association. They had also initiated the myth that it was Asmaa in the clip, he said.

The FIR caused Asmaa grave consequences in her professional and private life. She was fired from work and her male and female colleagues stopped talking to her, Mustafa said. “It became very difficult for her to continue her law practice,” he added.

Without naming him, Mustafa said a representative of the Lahore Bar Association threatened to cancel her membership if she did not quit practicing in Lahore.

Her father expelled her from his house, declaring her a source of shame for the family, he said. She received anonymous phone calls from religious extremists making death threats. She went into hiding, before finally applying for and getting asylum in the UK. She flew to Britain last week, Mustafa said.

Narang Mandi SHO Sheikh Farhan told The Express Tribune: “I believe she deliberately made the pornographic video and circulated it so she could gain asylum abroad.”

He said police had a CD and a mobile phone memory card containing the objectionable material and investigators had identified Asmaa in the clip. He said the male in the video clip could not be identified.

Advocate Anis AA Saadi, chairman of Free Legal Aid and Assistance, said it was said that all of society seemed to have turned against her without her guilt being proven in court.

She said “extremist elements” were deliberately highlighting such incidents to build their image as champions of morality. He said the complainant and his supporters should realise the agony they had put Asmaa and her family through.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 10^th, 2010.